Sexual Assault Quotes

“In order to escape accountability for his crimes, the perpetrator does everything in his power to promote forgetting. If secrecy fails, the perpetrator attacks the credibility of his victim. If he cannot silence her absolutely, he tries to make sure no one listens.”
― Judith Lewis Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence - From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror

“She knew I could tell with one glance, one look, one simple instant. It was her eyes. Despite the thick makeup, they were still dark-rimmed., haunted, and sad. Most of all though, they were familiar. The fact that we were in front of hundreds of strangers changed nothing at all. I'd spent a summer with those same eyes-scared, lost, confused-staring back at me. I would have known them anywhere.”
― Sarah Dessen, Just Listen

“No amount of me trying to explain myself was doing any good. I didn't even know what was going on inside of me, so how could I have explained it to them?”
― Sierra D. Waters, Debbie.

“I draw a line down the middle of a chalkboard, sketching a male symbol on one side and a female symbol on the other. Then I ask just the men: What steps do you guys take, on a daily basis, to prevent yourselves from being sexually assaulted? At first there is a kind of awkward silence as the men try to figure out if they've been asked a trick question. The silence gives way to a smattering of nervous laughter. Occasionally, a young a guy will raise his hand and say, 'I stay out of prison.' This is typically followed by another moment of laughter, before someone finally raises his hand and soberly states, 'Nothing. I don't think about it.' Then I ask women the same question. What steps do you take on a daily basis to prevent yourselves from being sexually assaulted? Women throughout the audience immediately start raising their hands. As the men sit in stunned silence, the women recount safety precautions they take as part of their daily routine. Here are some of their answers: Hold my keys as a potential weapon. Look in the back seat of the car before getting in. Carry a cell phone. Don't go jogging at night. Lock all the windows when I sleep, even on hot summer nights. Be careful not to drink too much. Don't put my drink down and come back to it; make sure I see it being poured. Own a big dog. Carry Mace or pepper spray. Have an unlisted phone number. Have a man's voice on my answering machine. Park in well-lit areas. Don't use parking garages. Don't get on elevators with only one man, or with a group of men. Vary my route home from work. Watch what I wear. Don't use highway rest areas. Use a home alarm system. Don't wear headphones when jogging. Avoid forests or wooded areas, even in the daytime. Don't take a first-floor apartment. Go out in groups. Own a firearm. Meet men on first dates in public places. Make sure to have a car or cab fare. Don't make eye contact with men on the street. Make assertive eye contact with men on the street.”
― Jackson Katz, The Macho Paradox: Why Some Men Hurt Women and How All Men Can Help

“You know all the ways you can kill a girl?

God, there are so many.”
― Courtney Summers, All the Rage

“I am a victim, I have no qualms with this word, only with the idea that it is all that I am.”
― Chanel Miller, Know My Name

“... in practice the standard for what constitutes rape is set not at the level of women's experience of violation but just above the level of coercion acceptable to men.”
― Judith Lewis Herman

“But no matter how much evil I see, I think it’s important for everyone to understand that there is much more light than darkness.”
― Robert Uttaro, To the Survivors: One Man's Journey as a Rape Crisis Counselor with True Stories of Sexual Violence

“[Referring to rape] It already is bigger than everything else. It lives in front of me, behind me, next to me, inside me every single day. My schedule is dictated by it, my habits by it, my music by it.”
― Daisy Whitney, The Mockingbirds

“The silence was killing me.

And that's all there ever was. Silence. It was all I knew. Keep quiet. Pretend nothing had happened, that nothing was wrong. And look how well that was turning out.”
― J. Lynn, Wait for You

“Today I wore a pair of faded old jeans and a plain grey baggy shirt. I hadn't even taken a shower, and I did not put on an ounce of makeup. I grabbed a worn out black oversized jacket to cover myself with even though it is warm outside. I have made conscious decisions lately to look like less of what I felt a male would want to see. I want to disappear.”
― Sierra D. Waters, Debbie.

“It was a catch-22: If you didn’t put the trauma behind you, you couldn’t move on. But if you did put the trauma behind you, you willingly gave up your claim to the person you were before it happened.”
― Jodi Picoult, The Tenth Circle

“In my mind, I built stairways. At the end of the stairways, I imagined rooms. These were high, airy places with big windows and a cool breeze moving through. I imagined one room opening brightly onto another room until I'd built a house, a place with hallways and more staircases. I built many houses, one after another, and those gave rise to a city -- a calm, sparkling city near the ocean, a place like Vancouver. I put myself there, and that's where I lived, in the wide-open sky of my mind. I made friends and read books and went running on a footpath in a jewel-green park along the harbour. I ate pancakes drizzled in syrup and took baths and watched sunlight pour through trees. This wasn't longing, and it wasn't insanity. It was relief. It got me through.”
― Amanda Lindhout, A House in the Sky

“Making someone feel obligated, pressured or forced into doing something of a sexual nature that they don't want to is sexual coercion. This includes persistent attempts at sexual contact when the person has already refused you. Nobody owes you sex, ever; and no means no, always.”
― Miya Yamanouchi , Embrace Your Sexual Self: A Practical Guide for Women

“The thing that most people didn't understand, if they weren't in his line if work, was that a rape victim and a victim of a fatal accident were both gone forever. The difference was that the rape victim still had to go through the motions of being alive.”
― Jodi Picoult, The Tenth Circle

“Think about it mate – the 'Long Gun'. That's a ladyboy bar.”
― Edward Williams, Framed & Hunted: A True Story of Occult Persecution

“Magic is hard on our world. Pulling it in is really violent and damaging. The more we use it, the more we stretch out the membrane between this world and the one we draw it in from. And the other side…' She looked at Maldonado and he nodded. 'Well, it’s toxic.”
― Edward Williams, Framed & Hunted: A True Story of Occult Persecution

“Intimidated, old traumas triggered, and fearing for my safety, I did what I felt I needed to do.”
― Sierra D. Waters, Debbie.

“Hand off my ass or I'll rip off your balls.”
― Katie McGarry, Dare You To

“Standing behind predators makes prey of us all.”
― DaShanne Stokes

“Tell me what good touch is and what is bad for I am young and I have no dad. -Jenifer”
― Durgesh Satpathy, Equating the Equations of Insanity: A Journey from Grief to Victory

“I always like to say "be the Swede". Show up for the vulnerable, do your part, help each other and face the darkest parts alongside survivors.”
― Chanel Miller

“Don't castrate,
But educate,
At least to masturbate!”
― Himmilicious

“Even if everyone knows her story, no one really knows how she feels. It pours out now: her rage, her shame, her guilt-- it still lingers. But with the telling comes a sense of empowerment. She has no culpability in the Brijee matter. None, other than being naive and being a woman. During the inquiry she had tapped into the righteousness that was her due; she slapped down the least suggestion that she might be a fault. She had learned a lesson: to show weakness, to be tearful or shattered didn't serve her. One shouldn't just hope to be treated well: one must insist on it.”
― Abraham Verghese, The Covenant of Water

“He told me that if I hung up, he'd do it. He would commit suicide. He told me that if I called the cops he would kill every single one of them and I knew that he had the potential and the means to do it”
― Sierra D. Waters, Debbie.

“I don’t care if men accused of assault have good relationships with their wives or daughters or women they deem valuable. How do you treat women you have no stake in protecting?”
― Tavi Gevinson

“If men felt empowered to talk about sex with their partner, especially before any sexual relationship has occurred, many harmful situations could perhaps be avoided. Many men see talking about sex as embarrassing, awkward or feminine. To avoid our boys becoming men who harm women, we need to encourage them to talk openly about sex and their feelings towards it. We need to encourage them to want to talk about sex with women, to see it as a part of the process of love and relationships, instead of leaving communication as solely the burden of the feminine partner to take on. Consent doesn't have to necessarily be sexy, but it should have to be talked about in an open and understanding way.”
― Catriona Morton, The Way We Survive: Notes on Rape Culture

“By suing his former lawyer, Baez’s attorney, Joe Tacopina, said Harvey had waived attorney-client privilege, allowing Tacopina on Baez’s behalf to denounce Harvey as 'a vile fiend' and a 'rapist.”
― Ken Auletta, Hollywood Ending: Harvey Weinstein and the Culture of Silence

“The solution I settled on was minimization and denial. I didn't understand that when you bury a secret it seeps deeper into your bones. And once embedded it becomes so much harder to untangle from your sense of self.”
― Natalie Norris, Dear Mini: A Graphic Memoir, Book One

“Why don't victims report? Because most of the time, the only thing reporting accomplishes is heightening the trauma to almost unbearable levels. It invites an audience to view your sexual assault. It's choosing to have no voice in the process after having it stolen from you. That's why victims don't report.”
― Rachael Denhollander, What Is a Girl Worth?: My Story of Breaking the Silence and Exposing the Truth about Larry Nassar and USA Gymnastics